The Dana-Farber/Harvard Center for Medical Countermeasures against Radiation will use the Pilot Grant Program to promote innovative, cutting edge research in areas that may yield discoveries that would translate into the rapid creation of new medical countermeasures against radiation or nuclear exposure. The Pilot Grant Program will invest funds in research projects with the greatest potential to grow to full research programs or to projects that would be competitive for traditional NIH funding. The funds will be used to attract investigators from institutions and companies that are not participating in the DF/HCMCR network as well as investigators not currently working in the area of radiation countermeasures. Investigators will be encouraged to apply for Pilot Grant Project funding to expand their research plans. These Pilot Grant Program Funds will be used to encourage collaborations among investigators, particularly between basic and clinical research laboratories and between traditional radiobiology laboratories and investigators in other basic science disciplines (e.g. immunologists, cell biologists, chemical biologists, bioinformaticists). We are encouraging innovative thinking and expedited discovery through the development pilot projects in the area of response radiation exposure. Resulting in new and immediately applicable medical and therapeutic response to radiation exposure.